Many Learning Opportunities at Two-day WSU Beef Conference in June

In less than a month, beef producers from around the Pacific Northwest will travel to Yakima, Washington for the WSU Beef Conference June 13th and 14th. Regardless of the size of your operation, there will be something for you at this event.

WSU Extension Okanogan County’s Director Curtis Beus shares more about the heifer gnomic workshop which will give producers the opportunity to evaluate heifers both visually as well as using genomes.

Beus: “The genomic tests we are going to use for this conference are a couple of them. One of them is primarily looking just at growth potential and marbling ability. We have a set of genetic markers that basically identify the genes in sets that measure the potential of those two very valuable characteristics. We are also going to run a brand new test on this group of heifers and it is called GMex advantage test. It is looking at maternal —heifer pregnancy rates, the longevity of a cow, how long will she be productive in the herd, her milk production. It will also look at growth and marbling and it is going to include beef tenderness and its going to measure the level of temperament or docility which is increasingly be found to be important in breeding stock.”

Beus says that this is only one of the 20 different workshops that will be happening at the conference.

There will also be a huge beef industry trade show with over 40 booths hosted by a wide variety of companies and organizations. ?Visit http://beefconference.wsu.edu for all the information and to register for the conference. Or if you prefer to call 509-422-7245 for more information.